Posts tagged ‘laying hens’

Lord and Lady Cavendish are a royal pair of Michiganders … I’m not kidding! They raise birds for eggs and meat, brew their own beer, prepare amazing meals, and they do all this with style, wit and great respect for the planet and mother nature. They are role models of the modern homestead movement and we’re thrilled to have them as members of Eggzy!

Eggzy: Why do you use Eggzy?L&L Hens: We initially set up our Eggzy stand to have our eggs available online and to let all our friends who like to buy them know if we have any available or not. It has turned out to be a great resource for us to know just how many eggs our girls are laying, who lays the most and how much their eggs are really costing us overall. Knowing that we’re spending even less than buying organic eggs from the market or local coop makes it even more satisfying to be raising our own eggs.

Eggzy: Tell us something about yourself.L&L Hens: Lord & Lady Farm is a part of Lord & Lady Construction LLC (an eco-construction company), which is run by the husband and wife team, Thomas & Laura Cavendish. The birds are watched over by Thomas (who is from England, hence our name), Laura, daughter, Arya, Laura’s younger brother, Robby and our good friend, Ryan. We live in the quiet small Northern Michigan farming community of Northport. We live as organically, healthy and planet friendly as possible, and because we’re not perfect we strive for more every day.

Fancy Girls

Eggzy: How long have you been keeping chickens?L&L Hens: Thomas had raised chickens before he met Laura a few years ago. Since we have lived in Northport, Laura has wanted to get chickens, but Thomas kept holding back, mostly due to the smell they create and you therefore have to deal with! Finally, last year in 2011, Laura succeeded in her wish and got some chickens for her birthday around March. Since then we’ve never looked back and Thomas has gotten all excited about chickens again!

Eggzy: Why do you keep chickensL&L Hens: We keep a large variety of birds for a number of purposes. We started with chickens for eggs. Because we eat nearly all organic foods, this lead quickly into raising chickens for meat as well, to save money on the cost of organic chicken meat and have a higher quality. This then lead to turkeys for meat. This year we have hens, chickens for meat, turkeys for meat, ducks for meat and quail for meat and eggs (males for meat and females for eggs).

Eggzy: How many birds to you have?L&L Hens: Since we raise birds for meat as well, our numbers fluctuate often, right now we have: 17 laying hens of multiple breeds, 12 rainbow ranger chickens for meat (or as we call them, the fat fats), 10 new hens that are not yet laying, 8 baby chicks that we were sent by accident and do not yet know the sex of, 13 turkeys of multiple varieties, 38 bobwhite quail and 10 ducks of multiple varieties.

Eggzy: What do you feed your birds? Organic? Conventional? Table scraps?L&L Hens: We feed our birds a mix of all organic ingredients. Organic feed, organic scratch, organic cracked corn and a WHOLE LOT of organic food scraps from our kitchen. Laura (our Lady) is an obsessive home cook and is always making a multitude of dishes or preserving flats and flats of in-season fruits and veggies, leaving the girls with loads of tasty treats on a daily basis.

It may not be logical but it does make sense, chicken math is the back-of-the-envelope calculating that takes place when managing a flock of chickens. Now the trick to chicken math, from what I can tell, is foresight. In performing chicken math, consideration and adjustments need to be made for gender, predators, illness and age — have I forgotten anything?

So for instance, let’s say you’ve decided that you want to keep chickens for eggs and your coop/yard can comfortably support 8 chickens. Assuming you get a chicken breed known for egg production, you can estimate 5 eggs per week per hen, or roughly 40 eggs a week from the flock. This number is important because it becomes your target goal, your inventory, what you plan for and maybe even sell against.

If you decide to raise your birds from (ordered) chicks, a straight run gives you a 50/50 chance that your birds will be female. Knowing this, you should order 16 birds to start with assuming half of them will be males and good for the pot. In other words, if you want 8 laying hens, it actually makes sense to start with 16 birds – that’s chicken math.

Now if instead of starting with baby chicks you go the route of started pullets where gender can be guaranteed, it would probably still behoove you to add a couple of extra birds to the mix in order to guarantee against predators, weather and/or illness. In this scenario, ordering 10 pullets will get you to a stable flock of 8 laying hens in a couple of months; again, chicken math.

And as that flock ages and time, weather and the elements impact egg production – younger birds need to be introduced into the formula to offset decreased productivity – foresight will require you plan to add even before you actually need to add to give those younger birds time to reach egg-laying maturity. In this case, 6 older birds and 4 younger birds may get you the target egg count you’re aiming for. That’s right, 6 old and 4 young roughly equals the productivity of 8 peak laying hens – chicken math.

To read more about chicken math, there are some interesting threads and posts online, check out some of these articles listed below, it’s fascinating to see how others’ do chicken math: